So… I went to SPX, the Small Press Expo in Maryland, for the first time, and I thought it was pretty great. We didn’t even come close to covering the costs, but I knew that would happen.

I shared a table with Jack Forbes, Pedro Camargo, Hyeondo Park (his rambling con report here) and Yali Lin (whose collection of pictures is here, and who has a great little post about the past and the present here.) That last post really captures how I’ve been feeling; how great it has been, that for the past year we have sort of unofficially banded into this group of five, a yet unnamed collective, going to cons and generally having fun (which often times involves karaokeing!)

Anywho, Friday at the con was really slow, and it seemed like it was going to be a big giant flop on our part. Thankfully it picked up on Saturday, so that we were selling as much per hour as we had sold on the entire first day. That was in part thanks to Yali and her super combo platter of comics. Some of the highlights of the show were the cool comic jams going around (one which went around to Tony Millionaire, Paul Pope and Becky Cloonan among others), playing Mario Kart with fellow SVA alumni Cheri Nowak and Vicky Tierney, drinking a couple of beers with Pedro (and forgetting to pay!), Pedro getting a cool Captain (from Space Sucks) sketch from Paul Pope (go here). I was specially thrilled to see a Little House Comics table, who I have admired online for a year now. Jim Ottaviani was there also, and he’s always great. I also picked up one of the buzz books of the show, The Mourning Star by Kazimir Strezepek, on recommendation from our table neighbor and fellow SVA alumnus Matt Bernier.

This post is running a little long, So I’ll just say, it was a great time. I might not be able to go next year, and I’m already regretting it.

Oh, and on a sidenote. The comic I posted yesterday, Chasqui, has shown up on the Beat, which is incredible. Thank you so much Dean Haspiel.